Five Years in Iraq: My Conversations with War Critics and Supporters

On the fifth anniversary of the war in Iraq, I did a series of conversations to find out how both critics and supporters of the war effort see the current situation. Some of the critical voices I listened to are Les Gelb, President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, the New Yorker's George Packer and two young Iraqis living in the United States. Here are excerpts from those conversations:

Les Gelb:

George Packer

Ali Fadhil and Sinan Antoon

To get the other side's perspective, I talked to Richard Perle and Fred Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute. Here are parts of those conversations:

Richard Perle and Fred Kagan

Read more HuffPost coverage and reaction to the fifth anniversary of the war in Iraq

Comments

[shingles]

I'm not a war critic, but I play one on TV.

[ignatov]

Both sides: the neocons AND the liberal war hawks! Thanks, Chuck!

[pointus]

Charlie, you've GOT to be kidding! All of these guests, including the "critical voices," were cheerleaders for Bush during the run-up to the invasion. Why not feature some REAL opposition: Phil Donahue, Al Gore, Sen. Robert Byrd, or Benjamin B. Ferencz, who (according to Wikipedia) "served as the U.S.'s Chief Prosecutor of Nazi war crimes at the Nuremberg Trials following World War II, has denounced the Iraq War as an aggressive war (named at Nuremberg as 'the supreme international crime') and stated his belief that George W. Bush, as the war's initiator, should be tried for war crimes."

[SamEllison]

Gelb made the most sense.

[appleknocker]

Did it ever occur to Charlie Rose to interview someone who had been right about the war?

[GeorgeinPA]

Why anyone would want to know what any of these people think is beyond human understanding. The central figure here, Mr. Rose will talk to anyone who can dredge up one more basis point for his ratings. The rest of these people have made it all too clear where they stand, and as for the neo-con con-artists...I cannot believe they even appear in public anymore. But then, so does Pamela Sue whataerface...and she's known around the world for HER round heels!

[UpperWest]

Charlie. you must be kidding. Gelb and Packer were supporters of the war, and came around reluctantly to "oppose it."

[arrows]

Exactly! Where's the real difference of opinion. People can be so stupid. And that stupidity has cost *many* lives. But go pretending you're doing something....

[BDuPont]

How about talking to some real Iraqis, you know not the kind that conned the neocons? Perhaps some refugees in Jordan or Syria, people who just love democracy and freedom as the Americans wrought on Iraq.

[jadez]

first off. dont believe for one second that charlie rose is some great voice of reason.

[pithy]

Why do we have to listen to talking heads like Kagan, Pearle, Kristol, et al, who have been wrong, wrong, wrong on every aspect of this debacle? Why do they even get air time? All they're doing is covering their butts as fast as they can!

[pithy]

Part of my post was cut off - wanted to suggest that Charlie do a solid week of programming that features ONLY Iraqi civilians - teachers, doctors, taxi cab drivers, telling us what THEY want for their country, unfiltered by the endlessly inventive neo-con "reasons we're there" switcheroo.

[Henry]

"invested in the image of failure in Iraq" said Pearle. I think that these "heavy-duty" neocons need to collectively get on a military plane to Iraq and take charge. We could give them a line of credit with the fed. They could hire Blackwater to train the freedom inspired natives. And it would be like... the fruition of their high-minded text book pontification during the "marketing" days of the war of occupation.

[mambomary]

rose's program is a refreshing antidote to the biased Obamania and Clinton bashing of this blog.

[BABinNYC]

It would have been more refreshing if Rose's guests had included James Fallows, editor of the Atlantic Monthly, whose cover story, entitled "The 51st State?", published in November of 2002 [http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2003/03/index.htm ] described all of the problems that have since developed. Fallows' article informed readers that many, if not most, experts in the foreign policy establishment openly doubted the reliability of the administration's evidence and the likelihood that the administration's predictions would come true. As one source put it, the idea pushed by Perle and others, that Iraq would become a catalyst for democracy in the Middle East "is so divorced from any historical context, just so far out of court, that it is laughable." Fallows identified the problems years before most of the press did, and was not in the least bamboozled by the criminally ignorant Republican brain trust that dragged us into the war. It would be refreshing to hear from somebody like Fallows, who had been reporting since before the war began, and continuously thereafter, what the real experts understood about the Middle East. No unexpected events are responsible for the Iraq disaster. The results have been tragically predictable. It would be nice to hear from somebody who does not have to spin the facts to excuse their own lack of judgment. In other words, it would be nice to hear from somebody, like Fallows, who has had it right from the start.

[BABinNYC]

The jump cite to the Fallows article above should be:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200211/fallows